Dividend vs Growth: Which Gets You RICH Faster? (The Data Changed My Mind)

Everyone has an opinion on Dividend ETFs versus Growth ETFs. But opinions do not compound money—math does.
In this video, I stop guessing and start measuring. I fetched 10 years of real historical data from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to build a custom Python simulation. We pit Australia's most popular Dividend Strategy (VHY) against the global Growth Strategy (IVV) to see which one mathematically wins over a decade.
If you are a beginner looking to start investing in Australia, or you are trying to decide between high yield passive income and long-term capital growth, this backtest reveals the exact "Crossover Point" you need to know.
👨‍💻 THE 5 ENGINEERING TESTS: I wrote a Python script to stress-test these funds in five different ways, so we know the result is not just luck:
Wealth Mode: Reinvesting every dividend dollar (Compound Interest).
Income Mode: Spending the dividends vs. the cost of lower growth.
Currency Attribution: How much of the return came from the AUD/USD split?
Rolling Windows: Testing every possible 3-year and 5-year period to remove "lucky timing."
Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA): Investigating $1,000/month to simulate a real investor.
🥊 THE CONTENDERS: 🔴 The Dividend Defender: Vanguard Australian Shares High Yield (VHY). This represents the classic Aussie strategy of buying banks (CBA) and miners (BHP) for regular cash flow.
🔵 The Growth Engine: iShares S&P 500 (IVV.AX). This allows Australian investors to buy the biggest US tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon via the ASX.
🚀 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
The Income Trap: Why Dividend ETFs feel safer in the first 3 years but might slow down your wealth creation.
The Crossover Point: The exact year when Growth stocks mathematically overtake the cash flow of Dividends.
The Currency Effect: How the Aussie Dollar (AUD) impacts your US returns.
The Winner: The final 10-year bank balance of both strategies (The data changed my mind).
📊 THE DATA SOURCE: This simulation is based on raw engineering analysis.
Source: Historical Adjusted Close prices from the ASX.
Tools: Python (Pandas/Matplotlib).
Period: 10-Year Historical Backtest.
⏱ TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Opinions vs Math (The Problem) 1:35 - The Contenders: VHY vs IVV 2:50 - Test 1: The Wealth Mode (Lump Sum) 4:20 - The Crossover Point (Where Growth Takeover) 5:45 - Test 2: The Income Mode (Spending Dividends) 7:10 - Test 3: Currency Impact (AUD vs USD) 8:15 - Test 4: Rolling Windows (Timing Risk) 9:30 - Test 5: Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) 10:45 - The Final Scoreboard 11:30 - Next Test: VAS vs VGS
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: This video is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. I am a programmer analyzing data, not a financial advisor. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always do your own research before investing in the ASX or US Markets.
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